


The Sun Rising through Vapour

by fraisemilk



Series: For peace comes dropping slow [2]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Family, Gen, Gintama: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare | Be Forever Yorozuya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5697652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraisemilk/pseuds/fraisemilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today, the sun is late; one hour ago its yellow burn has faltered, vacillating on the blue curve of the earth. </p><p>Gintoki has gone. How many days has it been now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Rising through Vapour

Now is the time to decide what to do.  
Already the sun is hot upon us.  
Birds are shaking, the world is awake.  
Black stars and night have died away.  
So before anyone is up and about  
let's talk.  
Now is no time to delay.  
This is the edge of action.

 

Today, the sun is late; one hour ago its yellow burn has faltered, vacillating on the blue curve of the earth.

Today, the sun is late. I close my eyes and concentrate on the agitated beating of my heart.

 

 

 

Gintoki has gone. One morning I found Kagura sitting alone on the wooden floor of the living room, holding a crumpled piece of paper between her small fingers; its wrinkled yellow corners brushed the naked skin of her knees when she turned her head toward me. There was an odd look on her face – not quite worried, not quite quiet. As if the ink had drunk all the blood in her flesh; there was in her body an immobility, a quietness. Gintoki had gone. The absurdity of his absence pervaded the room. The only thing left of him was a piece of paper and the blanched look on her face.

I tried to say something, anything. I tried to whisper and to scream her name, but the word got caught somewhere between thought and tongue, throat and teeth, dreamless sleep and sound.

Gintoki has gone. How many days has it been now? When Kagura had looked up at me, I had seen in her eyes a mirror. We knew: now that Gintoki had gone, we were the only ones left.

We were the only ones left.

 

 

 

It took three months for us to realize Gintoki would not come back; three months of unrelenting search; three months of waking up early, of going to bed late. We barely spoke. We barely breathed.

It took another two months for a bloodied Gintoki to stop haunting my dreams; and really, I asked myself, was it not too early? But somewhere in my mind a scar was already closing; five months are enough to forget a bad dream.

The sadness, maybe, buried itself in the sheer horror of our reality. No time for breath when the entire world is falling. The fading gleam, translucent in Dawn, slowly disappeared as days became months, as months became years; it left a thin thread between memory and heart, dream and awakening. Was it not too early? I wake and wake and wake – and on each day the faith sets, and on each night the hope declines.

 

 

 

Today, the sun is late; hours have been spent and spent in vain.

Today, the sun is late; I close my eyes and wish I could feel its warmth again.

 

 

 

How easy it once was to wake up and think: I can be happy again. Hope came with the assurance that the sun would set and rise again; but somehow somewhere, time got caught between a thought and a piece of paper, leisurely rested in the outlined shadow of a wooden desk, and closed up in the last forgotten stretch of a lazy grin. He knew – he knew he would leave – yet, on the last day, he had looked at me and I had not felt the silence and the doubt – I had not understood the odd tenderness, the odd look on his face; not quite worried, not quite quiet. Now, Gintoki has disappeared. And all that is left is the dusty desk and the dusty memory, the too-clear, too-strange, too-remembered dream, all that is left is two children, oh, two lost children, Kagura and I, Kagura and Shinpachi, and a dog, all that is left is two lost children and a lost dog, and an old lady too, and a robot and a cat-woman, and a city, a city emptied of its spirit;

The world is in ruin;

Gintoki has gone.

 

 

 

Today, the sun is late. I will wait for it a little longer; I’ll sit on the roof.

Already the tick tack of the clock has tinted the horizon with pink and bright bright blue. Today, the sun is late; will it ever rise again?

 

 

 

On that morning, when Kagura had looked up at me, I had seen in the transparent light of her eyes the perfect reflection of what I had known to be the truth. Laid bare upon her open emotions, the same Recognition, the same cursed acknowledgement, the same dumbfounded realization; “How silly you have been”, a tiny voice in my head had said. How miraculous this small spell of time had been, in which we had both forgotten how absurd Loss felt. The truth is: miracles will never happen again.  

How ridiculous I still feel when I look at her; her gaze remains steady; I run away.

Only the dusty desk, the dog’s whines and the dream of a memory are left. “The sun will not rise again” I hear myself whisper every day. Yet this whispered thought, too, is caught somewhere between impossibility and hope, between the outline drawn by sunrays on a wooden desk, on a dusty table, somewhere close to my heart.

 

 

 

 

The sun is late today. The red light of dusk bleeds through the cracks in the walls, illuminates mournfully the high tower of the terminal.

A man smiles and his smile is hope and love and tenderness; I recognize my dreams in his smile, I recognize my loss in his tears, and find the guilt has been freed from my chest. I will never forget.

The sun is late today; oh, long, cold winter days; the sun is late today; tomorrow it will shine again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is actually the name of a landscape painting by William Turner - the way he paints the light of the sun, and blurs the line between desolation and sublime has had a great impact on my small 14 years old self.  
> I've reached a critical point in my writing - i feel i should change something, yet i am unable to see what it is. Mmh. 
> 
> (Opening quote: from Anne Carson's translation of Electra)


End file.
